Jennifer Lopez and Ralph Fiennes held a mini-meet called “Maid in Manhattan.” diverseThe 10 Directors to Watch Awards and Creative Influence Awards are being held at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs on Saturday morning.
While presenting Lopez with diverseLegend and Groundbreakers Award In honor of her last film, “Unstoppable,” and to showcase her career, “Conclave” star Fiennes recounted his experience with Lopez in the 2002 romantic comedy. “Once upon a time in another life, and maybe in a different era of movie stories, there was A Republican Senate candidate is hanging out in a hotel in Manhattan, and in this afterlife there was also a maid in that hotel.”
“She dazzled the wannabe Republican senator with her good looks, but he couldn’t really see her. This maid was hiding something in her modest, thoughtful way. She was kind and charming, but actually she was hiding something. She was hiding some kind of great power,” Fiennes recalled. “Behind this maid’s mask there was indeed a power, the power of creativity, the power of action, something so powerful that it could not be stopped. An unstoppable force was coming out of this humble and humble hotel maid, and this maid, in fact, had extraordinary wings that opened, and she flew away.
“In this life, in this story, she has already been soaring with determination from an early age, because I think she knows she has something inside of her that she has to honor as she soars. It honors and fulfills her extraordinary creative spirit, shares it, and shines a light on her life,” Fiennes said. “So many people, you inspire them and brighten their days.”
Finneas also described her “amazing pole dancing skills” as seen in the movie “Hustlers.”
“We should really stop meeting in hotels like this,” Lopez joked, referring to the location of the Maid in Manhattan hotel. She went on to explain that she had no intention of breaking the rules, but that her ability to break into the business was mostly a result of “not listening” to naysayers.
“I set out to follow a burning passion against the advice of everyone around me. How do you do what I wanted to do when the circumstances of your life, your race, or even your gender create the idea that it is virtually impossible to go from a tenement in the Bronx to acting in Hollywood movies? “I set out to follow a burning passion against the advice of everyone around me,” Lopez said. “It is too preposterous to comprehend.”
“There is no straight path to success, and along the way we fall, we rise, we fall better, we rise stronger, we break ground, we break through and we become the architects of our own destinies,” she said.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande at Variety’s Creative Impact Awards and 10 Directors to Watch.
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“Wicked” star Cynthia Erivo was honored with the Creative Impact in Acting Award, presented to her by co-star Ariana Grande. Speaking of all the kids and others she’s heard from who are obsessed with the film and its music, Erivo says, “Maybe the job isn’t just being part of and creating work that makes an impact. Maybe the job is to influence people through work that inspires them to create.”
“Emilia Pérez” director Jacques Audiard accepted the Creative Influence in Directing award from his team and said it was particularly important for the actors to receive the award. “I’ve been in Palm Springs for two days, and every day I get an award,” he joked. “If I stay for the third day, can I get a third prize?”
It has hosted awards before diverse Associate Editor-in-Chief Ramin Sotoudeh and Executive Vice President of Global Content Stephen Gaydos.
The annual event was also recognized diverseThe 10 directors to watch, which this year include Durga Chew Bose, “Bonjour Tristesse”; Coralie Fargate, “Matter”; David Fortune, “Colored Book”; Drew Hancock, “Mate”; Zoe Kravitz, “Blink Twice”; Tom Nesher, “Come Close”; Halina Reijn for “Babygirl”; James Sweeney, “Twinless”; Magnus von Horn, “The Girl with the Needle,” and Malcolm Washington, “The Piano Lesson.”